University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V. THE DEATH OF THE STAG.

Lady of the Lake.

Gods! what a view was there! The sheer and perpendicular
precipice fell down at once above two hundred
feet, in one vast wall of primitive rock, with here
and there the stem of a bleached and thunder-splintered
pine, thrusting its ghastly skeleton forth into the mid
air, from some crevice or fissure wherein its roots had
found a little casual mould to support its precarious and difficult existence.

Beneath this gigantic mountain wall, the hill-side
sloped away, very steep and abrupt, but unbroken by
any knoll or crag, for several miles in length, to the
margin of the clear lake, which lay embosomed in its
pine forests, like a mirror surrounded by a wreath of
evergreens, to so small a size had it dwindled from the
distance; with the bright brook which rushed into it,

rapid and turbulent, from the westward, and the pellucid
brimful river which stole forth from it in the opposite
direction, winding among the verdant meadows, and
many-coloured woodlands, like a long silver ribbon.

Beyond the little lake stretched miles and miles of
gorgeous autumnal woodland to the south ward, miles
and miles of dark piny forest, with here and there a
cultivated clearing laughing out among the foliage, its
white-walled cottages and village steeple glinting
back the long sunbeams; and farther yet aloof, still
other lakes isledotted, and other streams blue glimmering;
and leagues away on the horizon a long line
of blue mountains, scarcely distinguishable from the
azure of the sky, veiled as they were by the thin golden
haze of an American autumn, and flooded by the unrivalled
splendour of its shimmering sunshine.

Glorious as was that scene, however, and rich with
all accidents of light and shadow, sweet to a painter's
eye, and well adapted to call forth all the latent romance
of a young and imaginative intellect, and such preeminently
was the intellect of Harry Archer, it must be
confessed that for once his eye strayed over it unconscious
of its beauties, or, if not unconscious, at least
careless.

The hill-side, between the rocky wall and the lake,
had been swept by fire not many years before, and was
now covered with a rich growth of tall grass, and low
bushy shrubs, with here and there the black scathed

trunk of some gigantic cedar towering up, a monument
of past devastation, from its verdant slope, and here
and there a group of young graceful trees, which had
shot up vigorously from the ashes of their sires towards
the clear skies, and bright sun, which they could
now behold, no longer cowed and opposed by the
tyrannous verdure of their gigantic ancestry.

This was the famous feeding-ground, to overlook
which our hunters had toiled so painfully to the summit
of that towering precipice; and, as Dolph had observed,
rarely was it, indeed, that its rich and succulent pasture
could not display one herd, at least, to the sportsman's
ken.

The gentle south-west wind blew full and fresh into
the faces of Harry and the hunter, so that no taint could
be carried from the persons, by the nimble atmosphere,
to the delicate organs of their intended. It was the
quick eyes, therefore, of the sentinel does only, that it
was necessary for them now to avoid.

The first glance was enough to fill a hunter's heart
with rapture, for, close below the crags, and within easy
shot of the platform on which they lay, a noble herd was
pasturing; three gallant bucks, one of the first head,
and twice the number of slim and graceful hinds; besides
a seventh, which stood a few hundred paces from the
rest on a little knoll, or gentle elevation lower than
what we should term a knoll, with head erect, ears
pricked up and expanded to catch the smallest sound,

widely distended nostrils snuffing the breeze, as anxious
to detect some taint on its fresh balmy breath, and eyes
keenly and warily roving over the whole expanse of
rock, wood, pasture, lake, and river.

No rash or boyish excitement at the view prevented
those skilful foresters from taking an accurate survey
of all that lay within the range of their vision; no burst
of eager impulse led them to discharge their rifles at
the nearer herd until such time as they should have
accurately scanned the whole pasture range, to see if
there might not be some other deer within reach, which
it might be possible to circumvent before pulling trigger
on these; which might be considered as completely
within their power.

Their scrutiny was speedily and well rewarded; for
in three several points of the landscape did they detect
the noble animals of which they were in quest, tranquilly
feeding on the long grass, and incumbent branches of
the underwood, entirely unconscious of the vicinity of
their deadly enemies.

In one little open glade about a mile to the eastward,
there was a noble hart of the largest size, with a yearling
buck, or prickhorn, and two barren hinds. Among
the dense coppice-wood, yet half a mile farther to the
east, the wood-brown backs and hornless heads of
several more hinds might be distinguished by a practised
eye, though it was not easy to make out their
exact number. Far away, to complete the tale, on the

margin of the woods skirting the lake, a yet larger herd,
than any of those nearer to the sportsmen, were lying
down to rest, licking their glossy coats, or scratching
their ears with their cloven hoofs, in perfect security
and fearlessness.

In a word, from the elevated station on which they
lay overlooking the wide valley, not less than forty or
fifty head of deer were visible at once, among which
the hunters had been at the first glance able to detect
with certainty two harts of the first head, or what in the
Scottish forests would be called harts royal, and two
other stags of six or eight branches, besides the yearling
prickhorn. The farthest herd was too distant to admit
of their distinguishing the age or even the sex of the
animals which composed it.

Ten minutes were perhaps devoted by the hunters
to this survey of their scene of action, during which
neither of the two moved hand or foot, or indeed gave
any sign of life except by the keen glances of their
watchful and roving eyes. At length, when each was
apparently satisfied with that which he had himself seen,
their eyes met, with a look of mutual intelligence; and
drawing back their heads as warily as they had thrust
them forward, they wormed their way backward foot
by foot over the craggy platform, until they reached a
little hollow of the rocks at about a hundred yards'
distance from the brink, and then, safely out of eyeshot

and earshot of the wary herds, they paused in consultation.

“Well, Mister Aircher,” the old hunter began, “yanis
a noble sight for a hunter's eye, is yan! You niver
seed jest sich another, I'm a thinkin'. There's fawty
head of deer on the range, if there's one. Do tell now,
did you iver see the like?”

“Many's the time, Dolph, many's the time, on Braemar,
and from the craigs of Ben-y-Ghoil. But never
mind that now. How do you mean to work them? and
how many can we get? I make four parcels, within
eye-range, that may be worked up to; but one of the
four is all hinds, and of no account.”

“Four passels,” replied the hunter, doubtfully.
“Four passels there be, sure enough; but how the
heavens and airth you'd work up to the big lot by the
pond edge, is more nor I can calkilate. No, no, boy.
There's three passels, only, 'at can be shot at by this
party; and, as you says right, one of them's all does,
and of no account. That nighest bunch to the eastward
has got one fine biggest sort of buck in it; but if we
goes to shoot it fust, and I won't say as it can't be
shot, cause the rocks is a plaguy sight lower thereaway
than they is here; if we goes, I say, to shoot it
fust, I'm afeard that the wind, which takes a swirl like,
oncet and agin, amongst these big gray stones, will
bring down the scent of us, and mayhap the crack of
the rifles too, and so skear these away. I guess it's

best to pick the three bucks out of this nighest passel,
and let the others go.”

“I think not, Dolph,” replied Archer, confidently;
“and I assure you that there are four parcels, beside
that by the lake. Your eyes, good as they are, have
failed you for once. You know the deep narrow gully
that forks from the glen we came up to the mountain,
and cuts right across the pasturage from the west,
eastward—”

“Katycornered like,” interrupted the hunter. “Yes,
I knows it, and knowed it afore iver you was thought
on; what on't, Aircher?”

“Why, about twenty yards below it, there lies a great
round-headed gray rock, what I call a boulder, which
must have fallen from these crags ages since; and a
hundred yards again, or thereabout, below that, there
stands a tall black half-burnt cedar, with a thicket of
briars and wild raspberry-bushes about its foot—look
here, Dolph,” he continued, pointing to the scathed top
of a pine projecting from the face of the crags, “bring
that white pine top into a range with the spot where the
feeder comes into the Green Pond, and you will have
rock, cedar-stump, and all, in one range. Well, that
done, look close in at the bottom of the cedar; and
among the briars you will see a monstrous stag, couched
all alone. I do think, Dolph, it is the big mouse-coloured
hart you wounded last fall on the northern

slope; the hart, I mean, that we tracked thirty miles in
the snow, and lost after all.”

“Do you though, Aircher? By H— we must have
him, if so be, it be he. He had twelve branches on his
horns then, and he'll have thirteen now—don't you
mind that, for sartin?”

“Surely I do; but he is too far off now for me to
mark that distinctly; and, as we lay, I could not get
my glass out. Here it is, fit it to your focus, and creep
forward and examine him; I would rather have your
judgment than my own, by one-half.”

“I dun' know—I dun' know,” replied the old hunter,
gazing at him with not a little of admiration, and
perhaps a slight shade of half good-humoured envy;
“them eyes o' yourn is young, and I thinks as how
they grows younger like and keener ivery year; and
mine's a failin' me for sartin. I'll go, though, I'll go,
boy. But fust tell a feller how you thinks to do with
them—so I'll be able to make out and settle all slick
and to rights. We moun't be creepin' any more to the
edge like, if we don't warnt to skear 'em. What's your
plan, say?”

“My plan's soon told, Dolph. It is that you should
lie here on the brow, keeping that royal hart under your
rifle all the time. That I should creep down the ravine,
or gully, to the gray stone; and if I can once get to
that, I can fetch him sure. There's a strong run of
water in the gully, and the ripple of that will drown

the noise of my feet; and the ravine is so deep, and its
face on this side is so steep and broken, that I think
this light wind will sweep right over it, without bringing
any taint of me to the nostrils of that knowing doe.
Then, if I can manage it rightly, and shoot the big hart
before he bounces, there'll be nothing but the rifle-crack,
which will only sound like a squib in the open,
and a puff of smoke, which, if they neither see nor smell
me, will scarce alarm them. But if it do, and you
shoot down the old stag, as you can do certainly, the
herd will either strike down hill toward the east end of
the gulley, where I can race for it under cover, and
perhaps get another double shot at them; or, they will
dash directly eastward along the base of the crags, taking
that other big hart, the prickhorn, and the two does
along with them; and in that case you must head them
along the cliff-tops, where they trend northerly away;
when you will probably drive the whole of the two parcels
down to the outlet, where Tom and Frank Forester
will he ready by that time to give an account of them.
Again, if none of them take the alarm, I'll steal up the
gorge back to you, without bleeding him or breaking
him up, till after we have done with all the other parcels.
Then I can creep along the summit here, till I
get opposite the big stag, and the prickhorn, when perhaps
I can get both of them, while you knock over this
chap here below you. That's all; what do you think
of it, Dolph?”

“I dun' know yit awhiles,” replied the old forester,
as he brought Harry's glass to the right focus for his
eye. “I'll go off and see how 't looks, and be back
torights, and we'll fix it one way. Seems to me the wind
is kind o' breezin' stronger up, and drawin' westerly
more, and that'll be agin your not skeerin' 'em. But
we'll see.”

And off he crawled for the second time, leaving his
rifle and his cap behind him, and carrying Harry's fine
Dolland telescope carefully in his right hand, while with
the left he wormed himself along the surface of the
ground.

Archer, thus left alone, applied himself to a careful
examination of his rifle. He took off the caps, to see
that the powder was well up in the nipples; and, satisfied
that all was right, wiped the cones with a piece of
greased leather, renewed the caps, ran his rod down
the barrels, and finding that everything was in right
working order, drew out his dram-bottle, ate a sandwich,
and washed it down by a moderate sup of the
old Ferintosh.

This done, he shook himself, with a well satisfied air
and expression; raised the heavy rifle two or three
times to his eye, and as he laid it aside muttered to
himself: “I'll have that hart royal for a thousand!”

As he spoke, Dolph returned from his reconnoissance,
and as he thrust the joints of the telescope together between
the palms of his horny hands, “All's right,” he

said, “Mr. Aircher. Your plan is the best, I think.
We'll git the two best bucks so, inyhow, and maybe another.
But, as it is, I'd rayther have that 'ere big 'un of
all, than three common-sized. The wind has hauled a
pint more to the westward nor it was; and its kind o'
freshenin' up, so I kind o' thinks as your shot 'll skear
this passel; but I'll keep well ahead on 'em to the eastward,
when I shoots, and show myself like, and if you
hears me shout, then strick it down like anything along
the holler. Now, be off with you. That big fellow lies
still yet awhiles. But if I shoots afore you git to the
gray rock, then you may know as he's bounced, and
come stret back to me. I'd like to git a good shoot to-day
like, for I'm afeard it'll rain to-night or to-morrow.”

“Let it rain,” replied Archer, cheerily. “I'll have
that mouse-coloured fellow, anyway. I say, Dolph,
keep you Smoker here, and after you shoot at this herd,
point them to him, and wave your hand well eastward
as he starts, and ten to one he'll course them right
down to me. Good-bye, old boy!”

And with the word, he dropped the telescope into his
pocket, snatched up his rifle, donned his cap, and after
motioning Smoker to lie quiet, until such time as he
should return, stole away quietly for a few yards, till
he had cleared the plateau of rocks, and then dashed
down the mountain gully, at a pace widely different from
the toilsome labour by which they had dragged themselves
to the upper from the lower elevation within half

an hour. Now racing rapidly down the soft peaty
margin of the brook, where it spread out into marshy
swales; now bounding fearlessly from rock to rock,
where it flowed among big round boulders; now swinging
himself by the pendulous arms of hemlocks and cedars
from ledge to ledge, where it fell in mimic cataracts
and rapids, over long rifts of slaty limestone; he effected
in less than twenty minutes the descent of the gorge,
to ascend which it had cost him and Dolph Pierson
above two hours of difficult and painful labour.

By this time, he had reached the point at which a
large fresh spring boils up from the bottom of the bed
of the brook, and leaving the old stream to persist in a
direct course to the lake below, shoots off at an acute
angle between two shoulders of black dripping rock,
and forms the ravine, of which I have spoken as diagonally
crossing the green pasturage, or as it is generally
termed in that part of the country, “The burnt feeding
grounds.”

At this spot the view does not extend fifty yards in
any direction; for the new stream turns a second angle
before it strikes the open ground, and the whole space
about the forks is covered with so dense a forest of pine,
hemlock, and cedar, with a few tamarack about the
edges of the brook, that the sight is circumscribed
within very narrow limits.

Here Archer paused for a moment to recover his
breath; bathed his face and hands in the cool stream,

and then turned down the gorge to his left, with a wary
and crouching step, very different from the free bounding
pace at which he had dashed down the precipitous
hill-side.

Within five minutes he reached the jaws of the ravine,
where the wood broke off in sparse masses to the
right hand and the left, and the little torrent, rushing
through a scarped natural pass, plunged down a pitch
of some forty feet into the deep gravelly trench through
which it seethed and chafed on its way to join the distant
outlet.

Here again Archer paused, and looked warily abroad.
From his altered position he could now see only three
of the separate lots, or parcels, as they are more correctly
termed, five of which he had noted from the
summit: The large solitary hart, which had arisen from
his lair, and was now browsing lazily among the boughs
which had of late afforded him their shelter—the great
herd in the bottom of the valley by the lake's edge—and
the lot composed of three bucks and seven does, which
had moved, though without taking the alarm, some
hundred yards nearer to himself.

This was of course all in his favour, since, if his
taint, or the smell of his powder, should reach them, it
would find them embayed, as it were, in the angle between
the crags and the gorge, so that Dolph would
have every opportunity of heading them again, and
driving them down to the mouth of the ravine.

A minute sufficed him wherein to observe all this,
and throwing his rifle, half-cocked and ready, to a long
trail, he stole down the centre of the streamlet's bed,
above knee-deep in water, stooping low and with every
sense on the alert, toward the well marked point, directly
opposite the big gray boulder, which was his
guide and landmark.

Before he struck the water-course, however, he took
his bearings accurately, well knowing that he could
not lift his head above the verge of the ravine to ascertain
his whereabout, without the certainty of terrifying
the animal of which he was in pursuit from the place
at which he was likely to fall an easy victim to his
rapid and unerring aim.

This was soon done, for a stunted oak grew on the
left side of the water-course, exactly opposite to the
rock, so that he had nothing to do but to steal silently,
keeping his head low, to that tree; with the certainty
of success should he reach it undiscovered.

Meanwhile, old Dolph, with Smoker crouching at his
heel, had again crawled to the brink, and, with his rifle
ready for instant service, was watching with anxious
eye the movements of his young comrade.

The deer which it was his peculiar duty to keep
under his aim had indeed moved a little further to the
westward, but he cared not for that; well knowing that
on the sound of Harry's rifle below them, they would
come, if alarmed, directly toward him; since, lying to

the leeward of him, they could not discover him by the
exquisite acuteness of their olfactory organs, any more
than the great hart could discover Harry, his lair being
farther yet to windward.

The same cause, however, militated against Harry;
for crawling, as he was, down a gorge midway between
the little pack and the solitary stag, the same wind
which favoured him in regard to the latter was directly
adverse to him in respect of the former, so that the
operation in which he was engaged was as nice a one
as any that can be imagined in the whole range of
deerstalking.

And admirably well did he perform it. The eye of
the veteran marked him, as he appeared and disappeared,
and reappeared again, among the sinuosities
of the wild gorge, never raising his head sufficiently to
let the keenest eye catch a glimpse of it above the
grassy banks, or exposing his person to the gusts of
wind, which were now beginning to sweep fitfully
across the open and bleak hill-side.

Dolph rubbed his hands in ecstacy as he observed
the care, the toil, the active yet deliberate patience,
with which his pupil made his way toward the goal, at
which he aimed. “Ah! he's a great 'un,” he muttered
to himself inaudibly, “for all he's a Britisher. I niver
seed his like nohow, for quickness at kitchin' inything.
I wisht one of my boys 'ud take arter him, but Lord!
they ar'n't half a beginnin'. He'll git that stag yit, I

swon; and not start them long-yeared sluts o' does
nuther, and that's what I'd not a' promised to a' done,
in my youngest and spryest days. He's as 'cute all for
one as a Feeladelfy lawyer, as true as a good hound
dog's nose, and as quick—as quick as a greased bullet
out on a smart-shootin' rifle.”

But while he was yet speaking, Harry had reached
the point where the most care and management was
needed, to escape discovery.

The banks had for some time been gradually becoming
lower and less abrupt; and the brook, instead
of flowing on a declivity parallel to the top of the
ravine, had found so hard and even a bottom that it
ran over it tranquilly for above a hundred yards in length,
scarcely a foot below the level of the surrounding slope
—at the end of this hundred yards, there was a deep
rapid by which it burst down to a yet lower level, some
sixty feet beneath.

Should the young hunter once succeed in crossing
the hundred level yards unseen, and conveying himself
to the lower level, his success might be esteemed
certain; but to do so appeared well nigh impossible,
since through the whole of that distance he was all but
exposed to the quick glances of the does above, and of
the hart below; while it seemed almost certain that the
wind must strike his person, and carry the tell-tale odour
up hill to the pasturing herd at the crag's foot.

But he had decided on all his measures beforehand,

and they were executed in an instant. His heavy rifle
was secured in its sling on his shoulder—and his copper
caps and greased patches transferred to the crown of
his skull-cap; his powder-flask he secured about his
neck by the thong, and held it up in his teeth; then
turning his head to the source of the stream, he worked
his way down the centre of the current, which was
some eight or ten inches deep, flat upon his belly, until
he reached the verge of the fall, down which he suffered
himself to slide, retarding the rapidity of his descent
by clutching at the ledges with his hands; a perilous
attempt even for a practised cragsman, but in his case
fully successful; for in less than five minutes from his
entering the dangerous pass, he stood at the bottom of
the cataract unseen and unsuspected.

Dolph clapped his hands in ecstasy and seeing that
Archer's success was now certain, looked to his own
rifle, and prepared himself for his share of the action.

Harry, meanwhile, as he stood dripping from his ice-cold
bath, shook himself like a water-dog, drew a long
breath, imbibed a deep draught of Ferintosh, unslung
and examined his trusty rifle, and then, having reached
the spot opposite to the gray boulder, as indicated by
the gnarled oak stump, crawled up the western bank,
with his thumb on the rifle-cock, and the nail of his
fore-finger close pressed on the trigger-guard.

Now he attained the brink, crouching low, and keeping
his whole form concealed among the long grass and low

bushes which crowned the abrupt steep. Only his eye
glanced quickly through the dry stems and sere leaves.
For a moment, he fancied that his quarry had escaped
him; for it no longer occupied the station at which he
had previously observed it; but just as he was beginning
to despair, a quick rustle caught his ear from the right
hand, or the direction opposite to that in which he had
been gazing, and turning his head quickly, he saw the
noble beast standing within twenty paces of him, tossing
his “beamed frontlet to the sky,” and snuffing the
atmosphere eagerly, as if he suspected the presence
of a foe, though ignorant as yet of his exact whereabout.

With the speed of light the rifle rose to Harry's unerring
eye, a quick flash gleamed through the brushwood,
a small puff of smoke rose into the cloudless air,
a flat quick crack without an echo followed it; and before
the small puff had cleared away, so truly was that
snap-shot aimed, the gallant hart had fallen lifeless,
literally without a struggle, on the green sward.

Lowering his but instantly, Harry poured the measured
powder into the muzzle, drove down the well
patched ball, applied the cap, and was ready for another
shot in less time than it has taken to describe the operation.

The next moment another rifle exploded on the hill
above him; but this time its sharp crack was reverberated
and repeated in a hundred ringing echoes from
the rocks and the gnarled trunks among which the shot

was fired; and instantly a long clear whoop, in the
well known stentorian voice of Dolph, announced that
the upper herd was in motion.

At this sound, Harry raised his head the least in the
world; and looking back, perceived the two second-rate
stags, with the seven does preceding them, coursing at
all their speed along the base of the crags due eastward;
while along the summit he could descry the tall
gaunt form of the Dutch hunter bounding forward with
what seemed almost supernatural agility, with the dog
Smoker at his heels, in the hope of yet cutting them off
and forcing them toward the ravine in which Harry
stood, half doubtful, half expectant.

“Well!” Archer soliloquized, “he has shot the stag.
That is two royal harts in one day's stalking; not so
bad, faith! but we shall not get a chance at the others.
Come, since there's no hope left of them, I'll e'en bleed
this fellow.”

And with the word his keen blade was out, and buried
in the weasand of the superb animal, which lay out-stretched
lifeless and motionless on the greensward,
which it had trod but a little while before, so full of
graceful life and fiery vigour.

“A splendid hart, by heaven! twenty stone, horseman's
weight, I'll warrant him, after he's gralloched.
He never stirred after the ball struck him. It must have
pierced the cavity of the heart. Halloo! What the
devil's that?” he continued, as the deep bay of a hound

struck his ear. “It's Smoker's tongue, for a million!
but surely, surely, he is not going to run musical, and
get himself shot nowadays by these cursed Dutchmen!”

The cry was not repeated, but Harry's telescope was
out in a moment; and by its aid, he saw the fleet deer-hound
dashing down a fissure in the rocks, and heading
the two stags, which he had cut off from the hinds, direetly
down upon the ravine within which he was still
standing.

In his impatient joy at finding a pass by which he
could deseend upon his quarry, the staunch hound had
given vent to his pleasure in that one wild cry, and was
now running, as was his wont, fleet as the wind, and
silent as the night, upon the track of the game.

Now came the tug of war, the rapid and exciting
ace, which renders deerstalking in the Scottish High-lands
the most severe and toilsome of all field sports.
Not once in years does such an opportunity occur in
the woodland tracts of North America, wherein deer-stalking,
or still-hunting as it is appropriately termed,
is almost invariably practised in forests so dense that
the eye can rarely distinguish objects at above thirty or
forty yards distant, and that craft, wariness, and patience
are of far more avail than the eagle eye, the unfailing
breath, and the iron sinew of the mountaineer.

Nor is it probable that standing, as Harry Archer
stood, even as the two stately harts came bounding
down the slope, with the fleet hound hard upon their

haunches, right toward the lower end of the ravine, one
man in fifty, who had not been used to Scottish deer-stalking,
would have so much as thought of being able
to obtain a shot.

But as the fleet and graceful animals came dashing
down the hill, clearing the scattered bushes and blocks
of rifted stone, which were strewn here and there on
their course, with long and easy bounds, Harry almost
instinetively perceived that they had not as yet scented
him on the wind, though they were well to leeward of
him, owing to his position in the deep channel of the
stream.

At about a mile's distance below him to the eastward,
the gorge of the stream melted away into the level plain
on the border of the lakelet; and it was at this point
evidently that the deer intended to cross the water.

If therefore by dint of his utmost speed Harry could
reach that point, ere they should cross it, he was sure
of at least one shot. And instantly, as he noted the
direction of their course, he dashed, reckless of all
impediment, at the top of his pace down the gully.

There was no space of level ground on either side
the brook; for wherever it had not cut its way sheer
through the solid rock, the gravelly or peaty banks,
washed by the rains of spring and autumn, fell steep
and sheer from the plain above to the water's level.

The channel of the stream was his course, therefore,

and a right difficult course for such a headlong race it
was.

Yet he sped fearlessly and fleetly onward; he could
not of course now see anything of the chase he was
pursuing; but he needed not the aid of the eye to know
that they would hold their course straight and unaltered
to their point.

Here he leaped with long active bounds from block
to block of granite, as they peered with their slippery
white heads above the chafing current; here he splashed
recklessly through the swift rippling shallows, seeing
the swift brook-trout dart through the eddies from before
his feet; there, again, he floundered almost waist-deep
in the dark pools, where it flowed through peat-bogs,
and tussocks, springing the English snipe with its sharp
shrill cry, and the mallard with its hoarse note of alarm,
from the rushes by the margin.

Onward he sped, still onward, long-breathed, and
unwearied; and ever and anon, he learned by the long
cheery huzzas of the old hunter on the hill, that he was
holding his own at least; if not gaining on the chase.

It must be understood that the lines on which Archer
and the two harts were running, lay nearly at right
angles to each other; Harry having about one mile to
run, and the deer about twice that distance, before
their courses should intersect one another.

Harry had now cleared above two-thirds of the distance,
and without slackening his pace had pitched up

his rifle into the hollow of his left hand, and was examining
the caps as he ran, to see whether they had
been damaged by the water dashed up from his feet in
his headlong career.

The banks grew gradually lower, and the stream,
spreading over a wider bed and running on a bright
gravel bottom, afforded him a better foothold than he
had hitherto encountered.

At this moment a long piercing yell from Dolph, who
from his station on the crags could see everything that
was passing, gave him notice that the crisis was at hand.

An instant more, and before he had even checked
his pace, scarce twenty feet apart, with their proud
heads aloft, their wild eyes glancing fearfully around
them, and their nostrils distended to the utmost, the
two harts dashed across the gorge.

It almost seemed that they were no sooner in sight
than they disappeared; so rapid was their transit, and
so completely did the bold bank conceal them, after
they had once cleared the channel of the stream.

But swift as was their transit, swifter yet was the
motion of hand and eye, which brought the ponderous
rifle truly and surely to the runner's shoulder, and discharged
both barrels, in such quick succession that the
two reports were almost blended into a single sound.

No eye of man, however near or quick-sighted, could
have noted that either of the balls had taken effect;
but the deerstalker had another sense by which he was

assured that neither of his messengers had failed to perform
its erraud. For a dull flat thud met his ear almost
simultaneously with each discharge, which he recognised
at once as the sound of the ball plunging into its
living target.

Before he had lowered the weapon from his eye,
Smoker had swept across the stream at one long swinging
leap, and was away on the traces of the quarry,
still mute, although the slaver on his lip, the glare in
his fierce eye, and the wiry bristles erect on his back
and shoulders, proved clearly how earnest and how
fiery was his excitement.

Scarce was he out of sight over the ridge, before his
master scrambled up out of the gorge, and, scaling the
right-hand bank, found one of the two harts prostrate
and struggling in the death agony, which his sharp
knife soon mercifully terminated; while he might see
the other, now some three hundred yards away, striving,
with desperate but useless efforts, to escape the pursuit
of the stanch deer-hound. Casting down his unloaded
rifle by the side of the slain hart, and fixing the spot in
his memory by a marking glance, he now bounded onward,
over the open, to the aid of the gallant hound;
who, he perceived, would ere long overtake the wounded
stag, and would in all probability receive some injury,
should he attack it single-handed.

Fast as he ran, however, exerting himself till every
sinew in his frame appeared to crack, and till the sweat

rolled in big drops down his face, despite the coldness
of the weather, his speed was put forth to no purpose.
For, wearied soon by its gigantic efforts, and weakened
by the loss of blood which flowed freely from the large
wound made by the ounce-ball of Harry's rifle, the hart
turned to bay.

But it was all too late, for, as he turned, the fierce dog
sprang, fastened his sharp white tusks into his gullet,
and bore him to the ground in a moment, before he
had time to strike with his cloven hoofs, or aim a thrust
with his formidable brow-antlers.

Then followed a desperate and confused struggle.
The hart, strong in its last extremity, rose to its knees
again; tossing its antlered head frantically in fruitless
endeavours to break the hold of its cruel enemy, bleating
and braying piteously the while, with the big tears
rolling down its hairy cheeks, and the blood and foam
issuing from its distended jaws.

For a second's space, it seemed that the stag had
the advantage; but it was for a second only. Again,
with a sharp angry growl, the dog tore him down; and
ere he could struggle up again, the man was added to
the strife, with all his pitiful and tender feelings absorbed
for the time in the wild fury of pursuit, and the
fierce joy of capture.

His foot was on its neck, his knife in its gullet—one
sharp gasp, one long heaving shudder, and the bright
eye glazed, and the wide nostril collapsed; and for the

fourth time, since the dawn of that sweet autumnal
morning, had Harry Archer, as tender-hearted and as
kindly-souled a man as ever trod on greensward, taken
that life, which but One can bestow, unpitying and
relentless.

And now, weak himself with the violence of his exertions,
and overcome with toil, he waved his cap in
the air above his head, and sent forth his note of triumph
in a long-drawn “Who-whoop—” to which a
cheery shout replied from the lips of Pierson, who was
now running toward him, midway between the cliffs
and the streamlet.

But ere the shout had well died from his tongue,
Harry staggered and sank down beside the slaughtered
game, half fainting and almost insensible.